Accidents Happen Especially On Purpose
by whynotitsfun
Summary: Sometimes things happen and Sometimes stupid people are just smart enough to let them happen without question. A fluffy (for me anyway) one shot, Charloe and silliness. I may be toeing the line with the rating due to language but sex is implied not graphic (sorry).


**A/N: this is a one shot that probably never should have been written. It has been induced by vodka and an acute bout of laziness. And so after an afternoon of editing and trying to turn something nonsensical into something quasisensical (yes, I made that word up). And so, without further ado here's what may seem a bit dark but is really a piece of fluff (by my standards at least) while I put the finishing touches on the last two chapters from Of Endings And Beginnings. **

**This takes place in an unspecified time after the war with the Patriots and after dealing with the Nano. It does not take place in any previous canon that I have written although since the story from the show ended so abruptly I guess it could be compatible with the show's canon.**

"How do you live with it?"

He looks up from his glass and considers the question. "You just do."

"Yeah, but how do _you_ do it?" she asks, emphasizing the part she really wanted to know.

He picks up the bottle on the bar and tops off his glass. He nods to the bartender and the man sets down a second glass. He fills it and passes it over to her. "That's how I start." He waits for her to drain it and then fills it up again for her.

They drink in silence, the young warrior and the old has-been. The weight of the world floats round them and presses on their shoulders as they slowly finish off the bottle. Before long the bartender clears his throat and points to the door. It's clear that the man wants to go home. It isn't worth staying open just to watch this odd couple get drunk.

He rises unsteadily from his barstool and slaps some diamonds on the bar—the amount is sufficient to pay for what they've had and for one for the ditch. He walks her home as they pass the bottle back and forth. "So this is just the start?" she asks as they stand on the porch of her one bedroom home—really it's more than a cabin really. It would even be called such if it wasn't for the fact that it's located in town. "This will make it go away?"

He knows exactly what she's referring to—the guilt, the loss, the grief of loved ones no longer here and the knowledge that you may or may not have had a hand in it. He takes another drink and looks at her. "It never goes away, you know. So you drink, and you fight and you fuck—you do whatever it takes to shut it off and shut your mind off enough so you can sleep, and then the next day you start the process all over… Drink, Fight, Fuck, wait."

"And how long does it take for all of that to start working?" her eyes are wide as she sees him for the first time, truly sees him.

"I'll let you know if it ever does," he murmurs, his words slurring from the whiskey and his mind still suffering for the images of so many people that are long gone and now under the ground, cold and hateful, always accusing.

He takes one last drink and holds the half-empty bottle out to her. She takes it from him and bends to set it down on the porch next to her. When she straightens, she lunges for him, knocking him off the porch and onto the ground. He lands hard with a grunt as she punches, kicks and scratches him. Later, she will even recall that she might have resorted to the so-called girl tactic of hair pulling. She fights him and demands that he fight back. He knows he won't, not really. He'll give her an honorary slap or two just out of principle but he would never truly hurt her.

The onslaught ends as quickly as it began. He's let her beat him all to hell. She needed it and he sure as hell knows he deserved it and then some. If it helps her to cope and quiet the demons that keep her up at night, then so be it; it will have been worth it. He stumbles past her and up the porch stairs, going for the bottle. He takes a long pull off of it.

She follows him and slides past. She leans on the door as she watches him check for anything she might have actually damaged. Of course there isn't anything. He's more than large and strong enough to prevent any permanent injury without a weapon and she wasn't exactly trying to kill him either—just get a little satisfaction out of the moment.

He attempts to hand the bottle off once more. This time, her fingers clamp on it over his, trapping his hand in hers. Her other hand reaches behind her back and finds the knob on the door. She turns it and pulls him into the house. "Two down…" she trails off as she waits for him to close the door behind him.

He takes her up against the door first, not even bothering to fully undress either one of them. Later, he takes her on the old and broken down couch in her front room, and then a third time on the kitchen table, followed by round four in her bed. There are only two things he's good for these days… killing and fucking—and he sure as hell isn't going to kill her (or anyone else for that matter, Texas frowns upon it).

In the morning he crawls from her home, bleary eyed and hung over. She hasn't roused enough to even notice his early departure. She's still not jaded enough for sleep to completely elude her. For him, well he's learned to doze here and there and not go insane; Insane being a relative term, of course. Still he's managed to find a few more minutes of rest than normal so all in all maybe it was a good night.

He doesn't see her for well over a week, but she finds him again at the bar and the night goes as the one before it. They drink—a lot and then she goes on the offense and then he fucks them both into a coma.

She appears again three days after that, and then the following night. All the while, what is left of her family is blissfully unaware of her nocturnal activities; this strange addiction she's developed. After all, they live outside of town now and she only goes to see them once every couple of days.

By the third week this has become a nightly ritual. Over time, they start to leave the bar just a little earlier. She still fights him; she has to mark him before she lets him fuck her. She marks him in these battles she wages; he marks her in the battles that follow soon afterwards. His ribs are constantly bruised from her fists and her hips are constantly bruised from his fingertips.

As week four comes to a close, rounding out this strange _thing_ between them to a full month, he finds himself waking up and leaving her just a little later each day. This continues until one morning he catches himself holding her as they open their eyes together in the late morning light. When he leaves shortly thereafter it is no longer before the town around them has come to life. He is aware that this is a good way to clue the world in to what they've been doing.

Still, when she finds him in the bar the next time, he leaves with her all the same, only this time it's only a few minutes after she arrives. That night she shoves him a few times in a paltry attempt to keep up the pretense. This night, it's early enough to allow for witnesses to see her giving up the fight before it even begins and then dragging him inside with their mouths already joined.

By the end of the sixth week, he no longer goes to the bar. One night he just knocks on her door before the sun even has a chance to set. In his hands is a bottle, one they will barely touch before she pulls him into the bedroom. Somehow drink and fight have eased their way out of the equation.

By the beginning of the second month, he finds himself at her table as they eat dinner together. They don't speak; they just eye fuck each other until after the meal. By now the whole damn town is well aware that he goes to her every night. The only people that still haven't been clued are related to her by blood or by bonds so old that they might as well be.

Two months after that, he's given up his humble loft above the bar to someone that needed the place to stay more than he did. He hadn't been there more than once or twice a week for the past several weeks at any rate.

One night they find themselves curled up on the couch—a new one that he'd found and brought to her when the last one had become so uncomfortable that it was considered unusable. This one has been newly upholstered and is actually quite comfortable and nice. He'd had to split enough wood for an old widow in town to last the whole damn winter in order to buy the thing, so it ought to be.

The fireplace casts a warm glow on the room. He's reading the Austin Times, she's curled up against him with some novel she's found. He looks up from the paper and it just occurs to him what has transpired over the past several months. He realizes that it has been weeks since he's even had a drop to drink—indeed that's something that hasn't occurred since he took his first drink at the age of sixteen. Even on tour overseas he and Miles had always found a little something to take the edge off.

He thinks back. He stopped when she abruptly stopped. Granted, they'd stopped getting completely shit-face so many weeks ago that it was hardly even a memory now. He shrugs it off and goes back to his paper.

She catches herself yawning and gets up to go to bed. He banks the fire and joins her, pulling her to him and taking her slowly. As they doze off later, the grandfather clock in the living room sounds off nine times. Since when was he ready to sleep at nine o'clock? Granted, most people do these days. It's fall now and it gets dark earlier. It saves on lamp oil to go to bed early. People have been rising with the sun since the blackout started and if it wasn't for the demons at night, the two of them would have always done the same.

That is the gist of it. As he strokes her hair and she contentedly rests her head on his chest, he realizes that those demons are not quite so vocal these days. In fact, they can no longer really be heard, just an occasional whisper instead of the angry accusing screams. "Huh… looks like it finally worked," he muses aloud as he presses his lips to her temple.

"Took you this long to figure that out?" She asks, incredulous.

"I guess so…"

"By the way, I'm pregnant," she says casually.

He expects that he should have some extreme reaction. Jump up and freak out or cry or _something_… He knows that he should, but he doesn't. He just accepts it in stride just as he's accepted every other change that has occurred between them since that first night she beat him all to hell before he fucked her in every room of this small home. "Guess we'll need a bigger house," is all he says, but the tightening of his arms around her tells her what he does not.

It takes several more months a whole lot of changes before anyone with the name Matheson finally takes notice of what has been going on around them the entire time. It is rather sad, actually how obvious they have been and how oblivious the denizens of the farmhouse on the outside of town are. At one point she stops going to visit them. She's got enough to do.

She comes home one day, six whole months after that first strange meeting in the bar. He's been sitting on the porch waiting for her. Without a word he takes the bundle of cloth she'd been in Crockett to buy and leads her to a nearby home. It's a cute little thing with a nice covered porch that wraps around to the other side of it and a well-tended lawn.

He opens the door and leads her inside to show her the place they will share. As always, they didn't discuss it further than the offhand comment he'd made two months prior. She just went to run her errand hand he'd gone and sold the old place, along with several Patriot rifles he'd been holding onto—The Rangers had been willing to part with a hefty sum for them.

He'd also finally agreed to sell his services at the Ranger training facility between the town and Crockett. They'd been after him to work for them ever since the war with the Patriots ended, but he'd refused out of principle. His holding out until now has earned him a very nice sign-on bonus which he added to the funds from selling the cabin and the guns to get the new home. And then he'd enlisted the help of a few neighbors and had gotten them moved before she got back from the neighboring town.

Several weeks later, she just started signing her name using his surname instead of her own. In Texas that's all that was really needed. If she uses it for a year without his formal complaint, it will be legally binding, but as far as either one of them is concerned it is just as binding now.

Three days after that, Miles comes into town for a supply run. He hasn't been to town in so long, he can barely recall the last time. Rachel's fragile mental state has kept him by her side. She never has returned to normal after the war and the battle against the Nano, the former having taken her father and the latter Priscilla Pittman.

He stops by the small house to check on his niece only to find it empty and long abandoned. Confused he asks around, only to find that she's relocated to a home a few blocks away. No one bothers to mention her new status as a wife. The last thing anybody wants to be is the messenger for that kind of news. Matheson still comes to town fully armed.

He knocks on the door of the cottage he's been directed to. She opens the door. The first thing he notices is her belly—at what she's pretty sure is six months pregnant, it's too large for him to miss it, though not so large as to encumber her yet. The second thing he notices is the ring on her finger. It's strikingly familiar, and it should be—he'd seen it hang with its mate on the chain around the man's neck a million times.

"How?" is the only question he can ask.

She merely shrugs. "We haven't the slightest idea," is the only answer she can give.

When she steps back, he enters the house. "Where is he?"

"Working," she replies as she turns away and heads back into the kitchen where she's gutting the fish that he'd caught disturbingly early that morning, as per her (and her pregnancy's) request.

The strangest part of the whole thing to Miles is that one word. For the most part, the man he'd once called brother had been skating by off of the occasional odd job and by cleaning the bar in the morning before it opened. He did just enough to keep his belly from rumbling and the rest of him from sobering up. "Working? Are you sure?"

She looks askance at him before turning her attention back to the fish. It's quite large and will make a great meal for them. "You're welcome to stay," she says. She ignores him as she cleans up the mess, taking the guts outside and then heating the firebox so she can get the fish baked and ready before he gets home.

When he walks in the door to see their houseguest, he handles it as he's handled everything else when it comes to her. He greets her casually but warmly, kissing her gently on the cheek before he gets cleaned up. It's been a long day of teaching the ridiculously green Ranger cadets how to not get themselves killed.

Dinner begins and their guest just stars at them as they go about it in their no nonsense manner. They casualness of their demeanor only contrasts further with what he believes is right and wrong with the world. "When did you get married?" he asks when he can't take it anymore.

The couple looks at each other and then flick their gazes to his. Her husband furrows his brows as he tries to come up with the answer. "Tuesday?"

She shakes her head. "No, I think it was Wednesday."

He merely shrugs, smiles at her and takes another bite of his fish. "You're probably right."

Miles Matheson officially loses it. He shoots out of his chair, almost sending his plate flying. "It's been less than a week, and you've already forgotten when you got married in the first place?" he directs the question at him. "And you—you're not upset by it?" He's pacing and ranting and they just watch him, bemused.

He takes a drink of his water and stares at the angry man before them. "Calm down brother, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack." His tone is so benign, so out of character that it only enrages Miles further.

He turns on them and sees how they're watching him, not in shame (like he'd expect for him just having caught them playing house) but in complete bewilderment. They hadn't exactly been hiding things from anyone. They hadn't announced to the world, but why would they? They've never actually sat down and discussed it with one another.

There have been no professions of love or even of strong like. He never asked her to marry him and she never gave her assent. She just started to use his name and not long after that he slid the ring on her finger on his way out the door. He was halfway to work before he remembered to pull his own out of his pocket and put it on—and even then it had been an afterthought.

Their relationship is one of silent decisions and unwittingly synchronized movements. They are a happy clock, gears turning in the background and all of the things that make them tick moving in time to one another. This is how they are and it works for them. Why announce something that just is? It would be like calling up your mother to tell her you took a breath that day.

Miles looks at them as if he's just entered the twilight zone. "Do you love each other?" he asks with a sigh. At least that would make some type of sense. He keeps expecting them to defend what they have to him, but it just won't come.

They shrug in unison once more, so ridiculous is that question. "Would it make you feel better if we told you we did?" she asks innocently. She's really trying here.

Miles looks like he's about to explode again. His face is red and his fists are clenched at his sides an attempt to not smack some sense into the two people before him.

She looks to her husband, her expression sending a silent plea. With his casual grace he goes over to the cupboard and takes a bottle of bourbon out of it—good bourbon as it happens. He blows the dust off of it. It's been sitting in the cupboard for quite some time now since she can't enjoy it with him.

He hands it over to him across the table. Still standing, he cocks his head to the side and tries to articulate something that he hasn't even bothered trying to explain to himself yet. He cares about this man, even though the past has damaged their bond beyond repair. He doesn't want his wrath, nor does he want him to worry about them. "She's… a part of me," is what he comes up with.

Husband and wife lock eyes again and he can see she's considering his choice of words. "Likewise," she says, deciding the phrase fits as well as any other could. When he sits back down by her side she pats his leg with affection and turns her attention back to her food.

Exasperated but finally getting it, Miles sits down and takes a drink from the bottle. "The fish is good, by the way," he says after a few minutes. It's apparent that they've lost their minds; he supposes the best course of action is to lose his with them.

The next morning he returns to the house he shares with Rachel and Aaron Pittman outside of town. He's stayed the night and has watched them closely. He still doesn't understand it, but maybe he's not supposed to. Whatever they are calling this thing between them it works and they genuinely seem happy, even though they rarely seem to actually talk to teach other. It's a silent comfort. They don't need to share stories about their day or talk about what they're thinking. They share a look and they know. It had seemed to Miles that he was the one doing most of the talking, even after he'd calmed down.

He has to be the one to bear the news to Rachel that she is to be a grandmother and how that has come to be. At first she rants and rages. And then she cries and laughs. Then she sleeps. The morning after that, she wakes up and gets dressed. As she heads outside, Aaron and Miles become worried. "Where are you going?" both men ask at the same time.

"Why to town, of course. It's a grandmother's privilege to help decorate the nursery." The look on her face reminds him so much of their expressions the night before that for a second he thinks he's entered the twilight zone. There has been too much serenity for his peace of mind.

Still he and Aaron share a look before shrugging and following her. At any rate, Miles had failed to bring back any supplies with him. They'll have to take care today while she has a visit.


End file.
